“The story is not a very long one,” replied he; and at once gave a full recital of the events, which our reader has already had before him in our last chapter, adding, in conclusion,
“I have left the boy in a cabin at Belmullet; he is in a high fever, and raving so loud that you could hear him a hundred yards away. I told them to keep cold water on his head, and give him plenty of it to drink,—nothing more,—till I could fetch our doctor over, for it will be impossible to move the boy from where he is for the present.”
“Glencore has been asking for him already this morning. He did not desire to see him, but he begged of me to go to him and speak with him.”
“And have you told him that he was from home,—that he passed the night away from this?”
“No; I merely intimated that I should look after him, waiting for your return to guide myself afterwards.”
“I don't suspect that when we took him from the boat the malady had set in; he appeared rather like one overcome by cold and exhaustion. It was about two hours after,—he had taken some food and seemed stronger,—when I said to him, 'Come, Charley, you 'll soon be all right again; I have sent a fellow to look after a pony for you, and you 'll be able to ride back, won't you?'
“'Ride where?' cried he, eagerly.
“'Home, of course,' said I, 'to Glencore.'
“'Home! I have no home,' cried he; and the wild scream he uttered the words with, I 'll never forget. It was just as if that one thought was the boundary between sense and reason, and the instant he had passed it, all was chaos and confusion; for now his raving began,—the most frantic imaginations; always images of sorrow, and with a rapidity of utterance there was no following. Of course in such cases the delusions suggest no clew to the cause, but all his fancies were about being driven out of doors an outcast and a beggar, and of his father rising from his sick bed to curse him. Poor boy! Even in this his better nature gleamed forth as he cried, 'Tell him'—and he said the words in a low whisper—'tell him not to anger himself; he is ill, very ill, and should be kept tranquil. Tell him, then, that I am going—going away forever, and he'll hear of me no more.'” As Harcourt repeated the words, his own voice faltered, and two heavy drops slowly coursed down his bronzed cheeks. “You see,” added he, as if to excuse the emotion, “that was n't like raving, for he spoke this just as he might have done if his very heart was breaking.”
“Poor fellow!” said Upton; and the words were uttered with real feeling.